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Sunday, 13 May 2012

Impact's Olympic Stadium success brings back memories of Le Manic

It is quite
extraordinary to see how well the Montreal Impact’s debut in Major League
Soccer has began. At first, the fact that news
their new Stade Saputo would not be ready until June sounded
problematic. The team announced that the season would start next door at
Olympic Stadium.

Tony Towers

Well, they had a
giant sized crowd of 55,000 for their opener in March and packed in 60,000 to
see David Beckham and the LA Galaxy on May 12.This reminds me of the glory days of the Montreal Manic. Although the
team only survived here for three years in the 1980s, they enjoyed some pretty
good periods here and had some pretty huge crowds of their own.I attended most home games – indoors and
outdoors – as a member of the media. What they did absolutely right was get
players out into the community and before long names like Tony Towers, Carmine
Marcantonio, Thomas Usiyan, Gordon Alec Hill and Bob Rigby were very familiar. There
was amiable head coach Eddie Firmani and a rabid base of fans.

Le Manic were
owned by Molson Brewery and their decision to try and transform the team into
Team Canada for 1984 fell flat on its face. The franchise foldedand four years later the Montreal Supra,
predecessors to the Impact, entered the scene. Playing out of Centre Claude
Robillard they brought professional soccer back here via baby steps. They
effectively became the Impact in 1992 and with the steady hand of Joey Saputo
at the helm developed into what is today a top-notch organization.

Saputo worked
very hard to bring the MLS here and he deserves high praise for doing so. His
decision to hire Legendre as executive vice-president and people like ticket
sales bossBrian Weightman showed that
he has a knack forselecting front
office talent. Legendre was a formerpro
tennis player, oversaw the Jarry Tennis Stadium and annual world class
tournaments and served as a provincial cabinet minister. He was a key hire in
gettingStade Sapuoto built and now
expanded.

While Saputo was
unavailable to meetwith me, I did spend
some time with Legendre at field level and he shared with me some of the
reasons why the Impact will probably continue to use the Big Owe each season.